the talking head, the prequel/draft one

the talking head the prequel/draft one

fiction
edward w pritchard

original story of the talking head is reprinted below for reference, this is the prequel

Darn that Shemr. He has dragged me to a diplomatic meeting in Vienna here in the year 1258. We Mongols are about to annihilate this City and here I am eating an elaborate meal with our enemy two nights before battle. I am too old for this type of rich food. Besides who wants to have polite conversation with someone one will be running through with a spear in a few days. I hate diplomatic work.

Orders are orders. I have been ordered to be here so I make the best of it. I am Stepan the Captain.  I am a career soldier. Sitting here at this long table and listening to the prattle of the Viennese diplomats I long for the simplicity of the battlefield. We eat with the elite of the City of Vienna and listen to them brag and cajole us for favors. Bragging always bragging, how important their City will be someday. They don't have a clue.

In a few days their plans and economic schemes will be extinguished. But for now I must listen for I have been ordered to help Shemr find prospective heads for his tower of heads to be built after we successfully destroy this City.

I always follow the same procedure at these dinners. I walk around and find someone with an unusual head. Say a very large head, or one that leans to one side, or someone with flaming red hair, very rare here, or some other rarity concerning the head. Then I engage them in economic conversation. Let them get to talking for a minute or two. Hook them to cooperate with us and then let their ambition and greed motivate them to talk with us. Then I introduce them to Shemr who under the guise of  recruiting City leaders to help with the reoccupation after we sack the City; looks at their head with an eye to how it would fit into the tower of humans heads we will construct following the battle. [see story below].

These towers of heads are blase to me. I have been involved in hundreds of them. But it's the planning and preparation I hate. Like these dinners. I long for the simplicity of battle.

Listen to these City boosters from Vienna talk. Ah, there's one with a scar on his chin. Would that make a nice head in our tower of human heads? I am not really an artistic type. I have trouble envisioning how one head will fit into the whole of two hundred human heads in a tower. That's Shemr's speciality. He is an artist at building these towers of Human heads. I just long for the simplicity of the battlefield.

Look at that City leader talking with Shemr. It must be his large ears that interests Shemr. How will Shemr incorporate those large ears into his tower of human heads when it is built in a few days. The man talks and talks not listening at all to Shemr. That's somewhat ironic isn't it.

end


The Talking Head

fiction
edward w pritchard

Because of nutrition, immediacy, and maybe will by the participant, one head in a tower of heads, customarily stacked carefully by the Mongols following the sack of a defiant City, today continued to talk long after what would have been considered appropriate behavior for a severed head in a tower built of human heads.

Shemr was a good Mongol officer, and was doing his duty toward his 100 men under his command by alone watching the tower of severed heads for the night after the successful breach of the enemies walls and sack and burning of the city this day. He let the men especially the younger ones do the more exciting rape, pillage, and for the more ambitious looting that routinely followed a siege.

In the last few slaughters, after the leg work of the job of removing and stacking heads was done by his command he had taken to spending the night alone peacefully sleeping near the tower instead of cruising the streets of the fallen town for women as he had done in his youth. Mongol law required a guard at the tower out of respect for the fallen enemy and to keep anything ludicrous from happening to the tower of heads for even the Mongols were adverse to bad publicity that made them look silly.


The Mongols had been cutting off the heads of the fallen enemy dead for over twenty years because once several of the high ranking officers and a prince of the conquered had hid among the thousands of dead bodies littering the streets of their town. The Mongols always were victorious and Mongol custom was when sacking a City, which they hated because they detested cities, they gave the city leaders one chance to surrender and the men of the town would be allowed to leave the city and it would then be looted and burned to the ground. The women and children would also be spared but sold into slavery. If the City refused to surrender, when they ultimately lost, every man woman and child were usually killed, although at times the women and children might be spared to be sold into slavery in this case also. It has been said, some what in exaggeration, that often up to 1 million people would at times be slaughtered in a populous place like Northern China.

Of course Shemr's command of 100 couldn't cut off that many heads alone with just sabers. So all of the troops were required to do a share once the normal ferocity of battle had warn off and it was then no longer enjoyable but just plain hard work. The tower of heads had originally been devised to engage all the troops in the head chopping work and it became an art to build a tower with a memorable characteristic that could be talked about later around the campfires. Shemr's command was specifically created more than twenty years ago as specialists in the supervision care and ultimate destruction of the tower of heads. Tonight as he checked the tower before going to sleep nearby in a very small tent; Shemr, who was not an imaginative or reflective type couldn't help but be nostalgic of the old days, 15 or more years ago when following the sack of a town, thousands of Mongol leaders and VIPs would crowd around the tower of heads until all hours of the morning. Of course they could be critical of a tower of heads as too conventional, or too avant garde but any artist or group of craftsmen like to have the achievement examined and viewed and any attention good or bad is appreciated.

As he settled into the thick animal furs for the night for a well deserved rest, Shemr was disturbed by one of the severed heads in the tower that began to talk. Not loudly, but he couldn't ignore what the head was saying and unluckily the head was speaking in a language Shemr understood. Shemr pulled the furs over his head in annoyance but at length he walked up to the 10 foot high tower of heads in front of the sacred fire and began to systematically look through the stacked severed heads to find the one that had been talking and singing, for of course the loquacious head was now being spitefully quiet.


End of Part 1

The Talking Head
part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

Shemr eyes stung from the fire as he searched the tower of human heads searching carefully through each face but could not find the one that had been talking. After admiring the symmetry and craftsmanship of the tower constructed by his unit; he decided to return to his bed in his tent and drifted into a deep sleep. Fifteen minutes later he awoke with a jump and immediately found the talking head. It was a large round face in the stacks of 250 or more human heads near the top right of the pyramid that was talking to itself.

After introductions were made Shemr found himself a little shy, and maybe afraid as he walked about the tower because although he had heard of a severed head talking before he had never himself conversed with a talking head. The head said something but since the head was unable to maintain eye contact with Shemr as he walked about Shemr's mind drifted:

Shemr was computing the odds of a head talking and himself actually experiencing a severed head talk as he walked about ostensibly now to have a conversation with the head but in fact for the moment at least not listening as the head droned on in a soft voice.

Shemr had been in the head stacking detail for twenty years, initially as a trainee, then a journeyman and eventually the last 6 years he had been in charge of the command. There were 4 major campaigns[ sieges and battles] a season he thought to himself, about 100,000 chopped off heads a battle, that's 4 x 100,000 x 20 = 8,000,000. Guessing he put the chance of a random severed head talking at 10,000,000 to one. So it was about time for him to finally meet a decapitated head that talked. Being a superstitious and ambitious man he took his beating the odds in the matter of engaging a talking head early [ before interacting with a full ten million decapitated heads] as a good omen and a sign from God and decided that since God had a hand in this occurrence he had better do his duty and pay attention and respect what the head had to say. He would treat the head as a guest in his camp rather than a captive enemy soldier.

Shemr focused his attention and listened carefully as the head explained about a shoulder wound he still suffered with, before being decapitated today, and wondering what had happened to the gold ring that he wore on his left hand. Probably stolen, sighed the soldier, if not by the victorious Mongols, the head's fellow soldiers would steal a valuable gold ring if it was unguarded mourned the Head.

Shemr politely listened but at length he decided to try and find a way to profit from him having a talking head, for he was now fully awake, the surprise of encountering a talking head had worn off; and to Shemr times of war meant the opportunity to earn extra money should the situation present itself. So Shemr began to be possessive of the detached head, at least as long as he might turn a profit, although being a simple soldier, he had no idea how to profit. Deciding to lay his cards on the table so to speak, Shemr decided to ask the head how he could exploit the unusual occurrence of a decapitated head's talking.

He interrupted the head and ask "How long do you think you will continue to talk, and please excuse my greed, but How can I Shemr profit from it".

At this question from Shemr, the head began to change as the head was now beginning to cross over to the other side, the side of spirit rather than material, and his answers and conversation became complex and more confusing to Shemr. Several times in the next few minutes Shemr had to plead with the head not to talk like a philosopher but remember he was talking to a simple soldier and to be kind to Shemr because the severed head had also been a common soldier himself.
The head decided to answer therefore every other question from the Mongol officer as himself, the severed head as a soldier, and then the next question as a spirit heading into eternity and reunion with God.

Shemr " How long will you be able to talk"

Okru, [that was the enemy soldier's name, before being decapitated] Probably 20 minutes more, until the fat supplies around my neck are used up. But the good news is I finally found a way to lose a little weight in the face," said Okru, feeling relaxed and accepting his situation.

Shemr "How can I a simple soldier profit from having possession of a talking detached head"

Okru " Can we really possess anything?
and continuing
Okru " A to have personally seeks to possess, you are a to have personality, I am a to be personally, we are incompatible, I only seek my full potential.

Shemr " Please I beg you help me" How can I use the situation of me being in charge temporarily of a talking head to my advantage?

Okru' answering as a fellow soldier, and feeling guilty to play word games with his overseer for the moment and Okru answered sincerely, " Contact your superiors and have them come to see the marvelous tower of decapitated heads that you have built, one that contains a marvelous talking head that can foresee the future.


With this Shemr became excited and wanted to look for fellow soldiers to spread the word about the talking head. Shemr knew that at 2AM the soldiers under his command would began to return from raping. pillage and looting because curfew was 2:30 AM.

So Shemr asked the severed head Okru, " What time is it [ for Shemr never learned how to tell time from the moon or stars, and of course mechanical time pieces were pricey at this time in history[ 1258] if available at all.

Okru" What is Time"

Okru continuing " If no-one asks me I know what time is, but once I am asked I sink back in confusion, because I know not time" [ Okru was paraphrasing St. Augustine]

Shemr became confounded at this and turned his back on the tower of severed heads and scanned the vicinity behind the sacred fire for other soldiers in the tents. Shemr left the area of the tower, abruptly without a good bye and walked about the camp but no one was about so he returned to the head who was humming to himself, probably a favorite song of his youth.

Okru, seeing Shemr " May I have some wine or water, fine Sir"

Shemr Lying so as not to break any rules, albeit unwritten ones, " I am afraid it is against regulations". Shemr shuddered to think the mess the water would make if he gave some to the severed head and it ran out the bottom of Okru's throat onto the other hundreds of heads below him in the tower of detached heads.

Okru again" this bores me, Isn't there anything you wish to ask me. I can foresee the future I know the entire past, and although the present for me is now a little unpleasant because of my pain and thirst I will answer any question for you".

Shemr, in an inspiration " Is my wife being unfaithful to me"
Okru " Is the wind constant"

Shemr " that's no answer"

Okru" OK try again"

Shemr" Do you feel yourself"
Okru , attempting a genuine smile, " Very Good question"
" As long as I have a perceiving mind, with or without my other senses. I am me, Okru"

At this Shemr decides not to trouble the head, a suffering fellow soldier any longer. Okra gave the severed head a little water despite the potential mess. Shemr then hears soldiers coming back to camp in the distance for the approaching curfew, but decides not to mention the talking severed head to his superiors because it would cause him, Shemr a myriad of paperwork and regulation in the morning.

Shemr then decides to go to bed again.

Okru, the severed head, " Could I ask a small favor Shemr"

Shemr" Anything within my power Okru"

Okru" begins to cough, his eyes grow very wide, and Okru extinguishes.

Shemr takes a small wet cloth and standing on a small Mongol made ladder, he carefully wipes Okru, the dead soldier's face, brushes over his hair with the wet cloth, and gently closes the eyes of Okru.
Shemr returns to his tent exhausted and falls into a troubled sleep. His last thought before dozing off is ' What would the small favor have been.'

End